Please see below the hilarious blog that Belshazzar's Feast have come up with for us, which their agent Terry tells me they've pulled off in the middle of a really hectic schedule.
BELSHAZZAR'S FEAST
Belshazzar's Feast are confused, even more so than usual. For over 15 years, we have played our idiosyncratic, some might say idiotic brand of traditional English music, both songs and dance tunes, blended almost seamlessly with Baroque hits, TV themes, and wrong notes. Our varied and colourful itinerary has taken us from back rooms of pubs to deserted bandstands, crumbling sports pavilions to damp working men’s clubs (for damp working men), as far afield as the US, Wales and Belgium. We like to think of ourselves as professional, consummate artistes with a wealth of experience between us, some of it even musical. We have an enormous industry mechanism supporting us - agent, publicist, web designer, hairdressers, vineyards, Ginsters . . .
Needless to say, our hectic schedule leaves little time for physical recreation and exercise, let alone team sports, although this may be belied by our appearance (that being said, we do listen to the cricket on long journeys, which can leave us both sweating and breathless). Imagine, then, our surprise and consternation on being told by our agent that we would be travelling, this May, to a beautiful seaside town in the West Country, as opposed to the usual dingy post-industrial towns in the West Midlands, not to entertain and edify our esoteric public with rare and choice musical delicacies, not to transport the cognoscenti to sonic worlds of ecstasy and rapture, but to take part, for a fee, in a high-profile sporting/music fusion event.
How has the booking arisen? Is this a case of confused identities? Might Paul S have been mistaken for a young Eric Bristow, or Paul H for an old Andy Fordham? How on earth can we possibly hold arrows in one hand and a pint in the other, whilst playing our various instruments and executing our sophisticated choreography? Like all New Men, we are in touch with our feminine sides, but multi-tasking to that extent defies imagination. And where will this synthesis of games and arts lead – The Ragtime at Rugby, Stoke Poker and Folk Festival, Poetry and Pool in Poole?
As I have said, we are true and conscientious professionals, so despite our trepidatious misgivings, we will rise to the challenge of this novel, if unexpected challenge, in an endeavour to do our duty to our loyal, paying and CD-buying public. Until the Dart Music Festival, expect to see us in training, building up our stamina and honing our skills, balancing beers on our bellies and shooting for bulls-eye, at a pub near you.
